A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The information here is so fragmentary that I'm not sure I should even comment, but I will anyway. You may know that an ongoing sit-in has been going on in Tahrir Square in Cairo since last Friday. Thde protesters even blocked access to the Mugamma‘, the huge government building where all the red tape afflicting Egyptian is processed, till ordinary Egyptians who need their paperwork processed had an effect and they announced it could reopen.

Now who, precisely, controls the "Popular Committees" controlling access to Tahrir isn't clear, but the relatively brief account calls him ahad al-baltagiyya, "one of the thugs," though it also says he was a worker from Suez who came to Cairo looking for a job. How does an unemployed man from perhaps the angriest city in Egypt become a baltagi? Just because he was carrying a bottle of wine?

The picture here and others at the link don't look like his challengers were Brotherhood or other Salafis; no beards in evidence. I can think of other reasons for their anger, but none are supported by the limited information available:

Were the protesters concerned that he would lead the authorities to claim there was a drunken orgy going on in Tahrir?

Or were these Islamists without the trademark beards?

Or is the issue that he was an outsider and falsely suspected of infiltration?

Or is this a case of revolutionaries showing their puritanical side? In the French and Russian revolutions there was a tension between revolutionaries who believed hedonism and free love were signs of the revolution, and others who felt these were the vices of the old regime. But the presence of the Islamists means there will be pressure on the moral values of the revolution, and pressures to ban alcohol altogether.

Of course, maybe he was a baltagi, but nothing in the story or pictures suggests so. He looks like a job-seeker caught sneaking wine through a checkpoint.

And given what I've seen of Youm 7, this could be tabloid sensationalism and nothing more. The information's awfully sparse.

"Michael Collins Dunn is the editor of The Middle East Journal. He also blogs. His latest posting summarizes a lot of material on the Iranian election and offers some sensible interpretation. If you are really interested in the Middle East, you should check him out regularly."— Gary Sick, Gary's Choices

"Since we’re not covering the Tunisian elections particularly well, and neither does Tunisian media, I’ll just point you over here. It’s a great post by MEI editor Michael Collins Dunn, who . . . clearly knows the country pretty well."— alle, Maghreb Politics Review

"I’ve followed Michael Collins Dunn over at the Middle East Institute’s blog since its beginning in January this year. Overall, it is one of the best blogs on Middle Eastern affairs. It is a selection of educated and manifestly knowledgeable ruminations of various aspects of Middle Eastern politics and international relations in the broadest sense."— davidroberts at The Gulf Blog

"Michael Collins Dunn, editor of the prestigious Middle East Journal, wrote an interesting 'Backgrounder' on the Berriane violence at his Middle East Institute Editor’s Blog. It is a strong piece, but imperfect (as all things are) . . ."— kal, The Moor Next DoorThis great video of Nasser posted on Michael Collins Dunn’s blog (which is one of my favorites incidentally) ...— Qifa Nabki